The Buffs, now 1-7 after suffering back-to-back losses at USC and Oregon by an average score of 60 to 10, are playing out the string.

Spoiling another team's postseason plans with a November upset will have to serve as CU's bowl game once again.

Last year Jon Embree's first CU squad ended the program's debasing road losing streak and knocked Utah out of the Pac-12 championship game with a win in Salt Lake City.

This year the Utes could need a victory in Boulder on Nov. 23 to get bowl eligible. Perhaps the Buffs will rise up again and deny their new rival's plans for an exotic trip to Albuquerque.

Anyone else miss Nebraska week?

Writing three columns a week about this program isn't easy. I imagine being a CU football fan these days is extremely difficult.

For nine months of the year, you can't wait for the next season to arrive. And then two months into the season, you can't wait for it to be over.

At least CU scheduled an easy opponent for Homecoming Saturday.

Stanford is only a 28-point favorite and 14th in the BCS standings. The poor, post-Andrew Luck Cardinal might have to settle for the Rose Bowl if Oregon takes care of business down the stretch.

Embree was asked this week about the challenges of coaching against the conference's elite teams when he doesn't have his own "Pac-12-caliber" players to put on the field.

Advertisement

"Yeah, we are out-manned, but I am not saying we don't have Pac-12 quality players," Embree said. "It is about being a competitor. You don't worry about who you are going against or the logo on the helmet or who the player is across from you. From an athlete standpoint, it is about competing."

Embree believes that when his freshmen are upperclassmen they will be the ones dishing out the pain. The second-year head coach remains upbeat about the future based on what happened in the program almost 30 years ago.

"I probably wasn't a Big Eight-caliber player, so to speak, as a true freshman," Embree said. "But I had to go against Carl Banks, who was the third pick in the draft. Don't blink. Go out there, fight, and compete. That is all you can do."

Embree's rebuilding Buffs only lost to Banks' Michigan State Spartans 23-17 in East Lansing in 1983.

The problem with Embree's young 2012 Buffs is they don't seem to have a fighting chance against quality opponents and they are certainly not competing on the scoreboard of late.

During the current four-game losing skid, CU has been outscored 213 to 51 and been out-gained 2,160 yards to 1,161 yards.

Stanford (6-2, 4-1) has struggled in low-scoring games on the road, getting upset 17-13 at Washington and in an upsetting 20-13 overtime loss at Notre Dame.

But this isn't going to be a low-scoring game for the visitors. CU ranks 124th (last) nationally in scoring defense (46.0 ppg).

The Cardinal defense, which ranks second in the FBS against the run (65.4 ypg), will try to delay the Christian Powell train and force Jordan Webb to deliver the Buffs their first win of the season at Folsom Field.

Webb might have to celebrate any touchdown passes laying on his back. During last week's 24-17 win over Washington State, Stanford had 10 sacks.

"All you can worry about is what you can control, which is your attitude, effort and preparation," Embree said. "It is about when your number is called when you are asked to do your job, you just do your job to the best of your ability, and seek to make it on coaches' effort tape that he is going to show on Monday.

"That is all I am asking them to do, just give me your best and we will worry about the other stuff later. And so I feel like for the most part a lot of guys have done that, not all of them, but a lot are. We just have to keep building on that."

So it's come to the point where we're not even talking about the possibility of CU winning.

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — A West Texas man has been charged with impersonating an officer by using sirens and flashing lights to skip to the head of the drive-thru line at a fast-food restaurant. Full Story